First he put his arms around Aunt Polly’s neck, and gave her a hug and a kiss. Then he went into the house to get his horn. The horn was a little blue one, and it hung on a peg near the kitchen door.
What do you suppose the horn was for? Why, Little Boy Blue watched the cows and the sheep. Then if they got into the wrong places, and trampled on the crops, Little Boy Blue blew the horn. One of the men always heard the horn, and came to help drive the cows or the sheep back where they belonged.
All this was very pleasant. But one day—what do you think? The sheep ran away, and jumped over a stone wall into the meadow, and the cows got into the corn. Nobody knew how it happened. Little Boy Blue had gone out that morning, just as he always did, to look after them; and no one had heard any horn. At last Towzer ran up to the barn, barking loudly. That was to give the alarm—about the sheep and the cows.
“How queer!” said Aunt Polly, who was in the barn-yard feeding the chickens.
“How strange!” said Uncle Ben.
“Where’s Little Boy Blue?” asked the men.
“‘he’s under the haycock, fast asleep!’”
“I’ll call him,” said Aunt Polly. So she walked, and she walked, all around the farm. As Aunt Polly walked she looked here, and she looked there. And she called:
“Little Boy Blue! Come blow your horn.
The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn.”